Fake hitman-for-hire site on the dark web received real ‘kill orders’ globally

Carl Miller still gets sick to his stomach every time he sees the smiles of the people targeted for death by so-called assassins.

“It's horrible, it's really horrible,” a UK-based technology journalist told FOX News Digital. “These photos were always so fun. Some of them were their Facebook profile pictures. You stare at these photos and they're staring back at you. The targets are always happy and attractive. …and you're just staring at them and thinking, “Do you have any idea that you're in danger?'' Do you have it? ”

Miller is the host of a new true crime podcast on Wonderly. “Kill List” The film tells the story of how Miller discovered a fake hitman site on the dark web, which led him and his team to alert police.

During the investigation, Miller also contacted potential victims and informed them that their personal information, including work addresses and photos, had been posted online.

Listen to Emily Compagno's Fox True Crime Podcast

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will feature some of the 175 kill orders submitted to police by Miller's team. That information led to 32 convictions and more than 150 years in prison, the report said.

“Some of these killing orders continued page after page,” Miller recalled. “The instructions were very practical: 'Targets tend to leave at this time in the morning. This is their car, this is their workplace. They have a dog, so be careful. ” There were a lot of instructions on how to achieve a hit.

“We also moved on to justifying why the person had to die,” he said. “We had to look into these carefully, because they were the best clues to who had brought up the orders.…The mind of someone who wants to kill someone else It's a very difficult thing to look straight into. And I don't think that's a place that most people have to face in their daily lives.”

Carl Miller, a UK-based technology journalist, is the host of Kill List. (wonder)

The incident began in 2020 when IT engineer and hacker Chris Monteiro was browsing the site and discovered a security vulnerability that allowed him to gain full access to the site, The Guardian reported. . The report said he discovered a “kill list,” a spreadsheet listing hundreds of people around the world that his client wanted removed.

“We had planned a podcast looking back at darknet assassinations over the past few years,” Miller explained. “We weren't expecting it, but Chris started sending us these living kill orders. A big part of the story of the podcast is as we struggle to deal with them all. , and we're trying to understand that and respond appropriately.'' In a responsible manner. ”

With Monteiro's help, Miller was able to see private messages between his client and the website owner. According to the Guardian, the website was a scam run by Romanian scammers and had no intention of offering any nefarious services. Instead, the scammer embezzled the money.

Follow the FOX True Crime Team at X

Carl Miller claimed he tried to alert police but was laughed at. So he decided to reach out to his target. (Annette Riedl/Photo in association with Getty Images)

“People believed the site was real, but it wasn't,” Miller explained. “The hit sites are not sending out assassins. They are not interested in sending out assassins. Romanian cybercriminals are interested in extorting money from perpetrators, that's all. And we We realized that very early on. When we started intercepting these killing orders, we realized that there was no assassination going on.

“If they were real assassins, they would have been the most incompetent assassins you've ever met,” Miller added. “They kept getting lost, they lost their guns, sometimes their targets were too well-guarded, or they went to another country. They were beyond incompetent because they didn't have a killer. Romania. 'The cyber criminal was just trying to extort the same amount of money' and from then on they would ignore the person.

“But we found that the real danger came from the people on the list. They were deadly serious.”

IT engineer and hacker Chris Monteiro reportedly viewed the site and discovered a security vulnerability that would allow full access. (wonder)

The cost of death varies, Miller said.

“There was an incident in England called a love triangle,” he explained. “There was a manager at a store who was having an affair with two of his employees. One of the employees tried to kill the other. The order was only about 100 pounds ($126.38). That was the lowest amount we've seen. But then there were a lot of orders in the $10,000 to $40,000 range for U.S. doctors.”

Miller said as soon as she realized the order was genuine, she called her local UK police and was ordered to submit to a mental health background check.

Sign up to get our true crime newsletter

“If they were real assassins, they would have been the most incompetent assassins you've ever come across,” Carl Miller told FOX News Digital. (Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)

“I think they were worried that I was mad,” Miller said. “Once they were convinced that I wasn't actually crazy, they took it seriously. But the problem is that these orders spread all over the world: Russia, Finland, Spain. , there was also an incident in the United States… we were laughed at.'' We were caught on tape coming out of a police station in Spain, and the police were laughing at us.

“In America, the police told one of our targets that we thought they were scammers. In Switzerland, the police told one of our targets that we were not running the site for the articles. There was no evidence that any of that was true.”

“I think that was probably the lowest and most difficult period of this entire investigation for us.”

When Miller and his team felt they weren't being taken seriously by police, they took it upon themselves to reach out to their targets in hopes of getting a warning. They were also willing to provide Target with whatever was needed to provide information to law enforcement.

Stephen Allwine told police that when he arrived home, he found his wife dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. However, investigators found inconsistencies with the suicide scenario and discovered that he was trying to hire a hitman on the dark web. In 2018, the Minnesota resident was sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Washington County Sheriff's Office)

“It's very unusual to step outside of your normal role as a journalist,” Miller said. “Journalists report. They wait and watch. But they don't intervene. And if there was a way for us to intervene differently to keep these people safe, I I think we would have done that first. But we couldn't think of any other effective way… There were also Romanian cyber criminals trying to hide from us. Some police didn't believe us…that's why we did it.”

Miller was initially concerned about reaching out to the targets, fearing that people trying to eliminate them would panic and “take matters into their own hands.” He also didn't want the receiver to “have a panic attack.”

The response he received was shocking.

Get real-time updates directly. true crime hub

Targets included former lovers and current spouses. (Getty Images)

“Most people were calm and collected during the call,” Miller said. “It took me a while to understand the message. One woman I spoke to was so unfazed by the news that she didn't even change her plans for the night. She lives right next door. I went to see a friend,” her estranged husband.

“A man from Wisconsin asked very valid questions. But when I spoke to him a week later, he said he was constantly surrounded by a sense of danger. He parked his car and , got out of the car and prepared to fight.'' He was always waiting for someone to jump out of the bushes, and every time a car passed, he rushed back inside the house. Find a way to feel safe again. ”

The podcast revealed that the FBI eventually got wind of an investigation into Miller. He believed it was real.

Carl Miller said the FBI took his story seriously. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“When they verified the information and found it to be genuine, they began investigating the U.S. case. … Since that happened, there has been more effective police investigation.”

Miller hopes the podcast will help raise awareness of similar sites that may be out there. And this can happen to anyone, he said.

“I don't mean to scare people unnecessarily, but I think one of the big surprises I found was how normal everyone was, whether they were targets or perpetrators.” Given that we thought we were going to be dealing with the drug trade gone, there was wrong crime and organized crime, but that wasn't the case.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“The people on the list and the people who made it on the list were, for the most part, like you and me. They lived normal lives, had normal jobs, and… In most cases, the perpetrators were able to maintain respectability, while secretly and sometimes desperately trying to get someone killed.